


A Dark Memento

by torestoreamends



Category: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Compliant, Malfoy Family Feels, Post-Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 19:38:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13596945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torestoreamends/pseuds/torestoreamends
Summary: Scorpius knows he’s not supposed to have found the robes, but once he has he can’t not be angry about the fact that his dad kept them…





	A Dark Memento

**Author's Note:**

> Someone very recently noticed that in the play, Draco is holding Scorpius’s Voldemort timeline robes in McGonagall’s Office, and this fic is based on the idea that he kept them.
> 
> This is a birthday fic for my wonderful friend, [the-eighth-story](https://the-eighth-story.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> Beta’d by the inimitable Abradystrix.

Scorpius nudges the door to his dad’s office open with his toe and peeks inside. There’s no need to be cautious; his dad is in the kitchen and he has permission to be here. But Draco’s office has always felt forbidding, with its heavy oak door that always seemed to be closed when Scorpius was growing up, the important papers strewn across the desk that Scorpius was told never to read or disturb, and the ancient books full of alchemical symbols and complicated recipes written in strange languages that line the shelves – they were some of the last books in the house that Scorpius was given permission to read. This place always felt secret and important, and he still feels a little bit like a trespasser even now. 

He tiptoes over the threshold and looks around. Today the desk is clear, all the papers filed away in neat leather binders, marked with the Malfoy crest in gold. There’s a stack of books on the floor, and other books on the shelves are falling inwards to fill the gaps they’ve left behind. Today is an alchemy day, not an auction day, and Scorpius prefers those because they mean his dad is up for deep, theoretical discussions, and weird bits of experimental potion making. He also tends to be less stressed. Scorpius doesn’t think the auctions are very good for his health, and Astoria never did either. 

He crouches down beside the stack of books and runs his forefinger up the dusty spines, trying to work out what exactly his dad has been working on today. It looks like it might be something to do with the first use of dragon’s blood, judging by the words he can make out in five different Runic languages, French, and Old English. 

Although he’s curious to explore the books further, they’re not why he’s here, and he doesn’t really want to linger this room longer than he has to, especially when he’s here alone. It feels like an intrusion, so he hops to his feet and makes his way to the desk. 

There’s one particular book that he’s here to get. They’ve decided to try and make Astoria’s rose and pistachio cake, because they’ve been talking about it for the last couple of days and they miss it, plus the Potters are coming for lunch tomorrow and Draco likes to try and impress Harry with his baking. So now Scorpius has been tasked with finding the old notebook containing all Astoria’s recipes, which is meant to be somewhere in this desk. 

It takes a complicated little Unlocking Charm to get Draco’s desk drawers open, and then Scorpius starts searching. There’s all sorts of things in there: peacock feather quills, owl treats, glasses cases, a half eaten bag of Jelly Slugs, not to mention parchment envelopes full of bills, the odd party invite, and a couple of letters that Scorpius can only assume are from Harry, because no one else writes with such messy handwriting in emerald green ink on Ministry paper. There’s nothing that looks like a recipe book though. 

Scorpius straightens up and dusts off his hands, looking around. Aside from the desk he doesn’t really know where his dad keeps stuff in here. He’s never gone nosing around much. He used to know where everything was in his mum’s office, and he knows that Albus has intimate knowledge of Harry’s incomprehensible filing system, but when it comes to Draco there’s no hope. 

Late afternoon sunshine floods the room with golden light, colouring the dust silver as it dances over the desk and settles on books, work surfaces, and carpet. Scorpius scoops his hand through the particulates as he thinks, making them swirl. He turns in a circle, eyeing the filing cabinets, but he knows nothing will be in there, and the book won’t be on the bookshelves either; it’s not _that_ sort of book. 

Maybe he should go back to the kitchen and ask his dad? That’s probably the easiest thing, and it’s better than turning the whole room upside down. 

Scorpius turns to leave, and that’s when he spots the box, hidden in the shadows between the door and the book shelves. It’s solid oak, just like the door it’s hidden behind, with black wrought iron protecting each of the corners and making up the latch. It’s beautiful up close, but it’s unassuming enough to be ignored as just a cloak chest if you didn’t know what was in there. But Scorpius knows. 

This is the place where his dad keeps all his most precious things. Not the things that are most valuable, those are locked away in a safe somewhere, but the things that mean the most. Scorpius knows that his mum’s wedding dress is in there, folded up in its box, along with her engagement ring. If his dad was going to put the notebook anywhere it would be in this chest. 

He nudges the door closed and kneels down on the floor by the chest. The latch is heavy and a little stiff. This isn’t the sort of box that gets opened regularly, and Scorpius has to fight with it. When he finally unlatches it he pushes the lid open, and even though it creaks, it swings smoothly back and he lets it rest against the side of the bookshelves. 

The chest is almost full. A lot of things have been placed in there for safekeeping over the years. There’s a tiny box containing Scorpius’s first pair of shoes, which he lifts out and sets down on the carpet beside him. A slim book full of messages from the well-wishers at Draco and Astoria’s wedding is nestled beneath that, on top of a mass of black fabric that Scorpius doesn’t immediately recognise. He removes the wedding book, cradling the fragile binding, which is starting to split after years of reading and rereading, and picks up the fabric, curious to try and work out what it is. 

The fabric itself is very heavy. Wearing it must be like wearing a suit of armour, Scorpius thinks. Whatever this is, it seems like the sort of clothing meant to weigh you down, keep your back straight and your head high. In his whole life he’s only ever worn one set of clothes like that, made from thick black wool just like this, and even thinking about that experience makes him shudder. 

He lets the fabric run through his hands, until he reaches a new texture. There’s leather sewn into this, stiff and shiny. It’s pulled taut, and Scorpius can tell just by touching it that it would be tight and restrictive to wear, almost like a corset. He remembers what it was like to wear something like that, like he was being compressed, like he could never catch his breath, like he was being squeezed from all sides with no escape and no relief. He’s getting breathless now just looking at the black material that suddenly feels disturbingly familiar under his touch. 

There’s panic rising inside him. His heart is racing, hands shaking. The memory of the dark world is closing in on him, but this can’t be what he suspects it is. That was lost, abandoned in the lake years ago when he left that world behind. Why would it be here, now, in this bright room, concealed in his dad’s chest of treasured objects? 

With trembling hands, he turns the robes over, and takes in the still familiar pattern of the leather, twisted and bunched up, pinned in a pattern that spreads across the wearer’s chest like the ribs of a beast. And as he shifts more of that pattern into view, his fingers graze over the jutting, curved structure at the back, that emphasises the S shape where neck flows into back flows into waist, like the spine of a serpent, sinuous and supple. 

Scorpius closes his eyes and lets the robes drop out of his hands onto the carpet. He can still feel a bit of fabric draped over his knee, and he twitches it off, not wanting to be touched by it, trying to rid himself of all evidence of its existence.

The summer sun flooding through the window warms the back of his head, and makes the space behind his eyelids glow a warm red. He takes several deep breaths and runs his hands over the soft piles of his dad’s carpet. 

He’s at home. He’s safe. He’s seventeen years old and the other world is a distant memory. His dad – _his_ dad – is downstairs in the kitchen. And the robes are just a hallucination, or a memory, or something. They’re not real. They can’t exist. That would make no sense. 

He draws in another lungful of sweet summer air and opens his eyes. The black pool of fabric is still lying on the floor between him and the chest of treasures, but he doesn’t feel any panic when he looks at it now. Instead he feels completely calm, because there’s no possible way it can be what it looks like. He left that thing in the lake and walked away. It’s long gone. This must be something else, some strange coincidence, and he can prove it. If it was his, it might still fit him. At least the proportions would be right. He’s not _that_ much bigger than he was when he wore it.

Confident, he picks up the robes and gets to his feet. He turns round and squints against the sunlight as he moves out from behind the door and into the centre of the room. The robes are very tight when he starts pulling them on. He’d forgotten how tight they were, not that these are the ones he wore in the other world; that would be impossible. 

The itchy wool clings to him, and he has to wriggle his shoulders as he stuffs his left arm through the sleeve. He must have grown more over the years than he’d thought, because his shoulders are broad enough now that he has to hunch them up and contort them to be able to get his right arm through. It’s even further from comfortable than he remembers. His whole body feels compressed, and the fabric scratches at his skin when he moves so much as an inch. 

He doesn’t even try to do up the leather front piece; it wouldn’t stretch across his chest anymore, and if it did it would be at the expense of all his lung capacity. He’d have to crush his ribs, and all the organs within them, but the other world wouldn’t have cared about that. The Scorpion King wouldn’t have cared, he’d have got on with it if that’s what he had to do. 

The room goes cold as the sun disappears behind a cloud, and Scorpius gasps in a desperate breath. His body doesn’t seem to believe it’s capable of taking in oxygen at the moment. The robes are so constrictive around his torso, right up to his throat, that he can’t expand. He’s being strangled, asphyxiated by the existence of this memory of the darkness that’s followed him across the space and years. 

In the window he can see his reflection, pale, wide eyed with fear, body tense, hands gripping the front of the robes like he’s trying to stop them closing in any tighter. He may not be fourteen anymore, but he can see the shadow of his younger self there too, a terrified, uncertain boy who’s fighting for the light with only the inspiration of his mum’s heart, the hope of saving his best friend, and the dream of his dad’s love to spur him on. 

There’s no doubt that these were his. The memory of these robes fits him like a glove, enveloping his mind, bringing that world flooding back into him in a way they haven’t in years. 

The icy chill of the Dementors’ breath, the press of Umbridge’s wand to his throat, the grip of his dad’s fingers on his chin, hard enough to bruise. Crushing cold and desolate loneliness crush in on him, and he collapses to his knees and struggles to claw his way out of the robes. There are tears stinging his eyes, and once he’s free he lies on the floor, eyes squeezed closed as he tries to hold them at bay. 

He doesn’t understand. His dad kept these. He must have fished them out of the lake, dried them off, and then put them in the chest full of all his most precious memories. Why are _these_ precious to him? Why would anyone want something like this? A reminder of the world’s horrific potential for utter darkness? Isn’t the Dark Mark on his dad’s arm enough?

Tears choke him and he swallows them down, wiping his eyes on the back of his hands. Suddenly he doubts everything he’d thought he’d learned about his dad over the past few years. He doesn’t want to. He wants to give his dad every bit of trust he possesses, but he can’t. Because this is confusing and awful, and Scorpius feels betrayed. 

It takes a lot to roll onto his front and push himself upright. As he sits up, several tears dribble off the end of his nose, and he brushes them away. The sun has come back out now, and there’s warmth on his face. Between the tears and the streaming sunshine he can’t see much as he stumbles to his feet and picks up the robes. 

He resists the urge to throw them across the room, and instead walks back to the chest and dumps it inside. As the dark material lands, it crumples and creases on top of a little blue book, that’s worn around the corners and at the top of the spine, and has a title written in familiar handwriting across the front. That writing sends a surge of warmth through him. That’s is his mum’s book. This is what he came for. 

Wiping his eyes and nose on his wrist, he stoops down and pushes the robes out of the way. He scoops the book into his hands and hugs it to his chest, right against his heart, holding it between himself and the robes like a shield. He bows his head and breathes in the scent of crinkled old parchment and sweet flour, and that makes him cry harder. His whole body shakes as he clings to this remnant of his mum, who always taught him to be good and kind and to make the world a better place. This is who he is. This is how he wants his family to be. This is the sort of thing his dad should value. It’s wrong to keep something like this in the same place as those robes. 

He sniffs and draws in a hiccuping breath, trying to pull himself together. If he doesn’t go downstairs soon his dad will wonder where he’s gone, so he has to sort himself out. Looking like he’s been crying isn’t an option. 

He walks across to the window and rests his forehead against the cool glass. Golden sunlight floods through his closed eyelids, warm and bright. He strokes his fingers down the front cover of his mum’s book, and it makes him feel steadier, stronger. As much as he wants to walk into the kitchen and lie – and he’s an excellent liar, who could easily convince his dad that nothing’s happened – there’s the other part, the part that’s got braver and bolder over the years, the part where his mum’s spirit lives on inside him, that wants to understand. He _needs_ to understand. Rebuilding his relationship with his dad has meant everything to him. He’s not going to give all that up for a return to silence and pain. 

The worn cover of his mum’s book is soft and comforting under his fingertips, and he draws in one more shuddering breath before lifting his head. He scrubs his wrist across his eyes and nose, trying to mop up the last remnants of the tears, then he draws himself up tall, squares his shoulders, and marches out of the room with all the boldness he can muster. 

As he goes downstairs he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror hanging in the foyer. His cheeks are red and splotchy, and other than that his cheeks are drained of colour. He looks a mess. There’s no chance his dad won’t immediately notice that something’s wrong, but there’s nothing he can do about that now. With one final sniff and wipe of his eyes, he turns down the passage to the kitchen and nudges it open with his shoulder, a low thrum of anxiety beating through him. 

Draco is standing by the sink, humming to himself and making a hurricane of soap suds, water, and tea cups whirl in the sink in front of him. He doesn’t seem to care how much mess he’s making. Astoria used to tell him off for throwing water all over her kitchen, but he never learned. 

Scorpius cracks a smile, despite himself. 

“I think there’s more water outside the sink than in it,” he says, and as light as his tone is, he still sounds clogged up, like he’s got a cold.

His dad summons a tea towel, which zooms across the room into his outstretched hand. “I think that’s a slight exaggeration. I may have splashed a drop or two, but-“ He stops dead, staring at Scorpius. “Are you alright?”

Scorpius lifts his chin a fraction, and runs his thumb over the pages of his mum’s book, borrowing her strength. “No,” he says. 

Draco puts the tea towel down and the tea cups and soap suds stop spinning as all his attention focuses on Scorpius. His expression is piercing, sharp as steel, sharp enough to cut right to Scorpius’s heart, sharp enough to draw blood. “What’s wrong?” He asks, tone hollow and fragile with concern. 

Scorpius inhales a shaky breath, and tightens his grip on the book. “I-I found something,” he says, meeting his dad’s eyes even though it hurts. “While I was looking for this.” 

He holds up the book, and his dad’s frown deepens. Scorpius can tell he’s running through all the options in his head, the things Scorpius might have found, ways they could be misinterpreted, but Scorpius knows that he’s drawing a blank. They don’t keep secrets anymore. Apart from this one, which is so deeply held that Draco seems to have forgotten it. 

Scorpius twists the book between his hands and makes himself not look down at the ground. “I couldn’t find this in your desk. I had to go looking for it. And I found it in the chest, the one behind the door where you keep important things. But I also found-“ he breaks off as tears well up again, making his voice go ragged and breathless. Desperate to hold it together, he swallows and blinks hard. “My robes, from the other world, and I don’t understand-“ He fractures, anger and fear shattering him like glass, and the tears start falling again, faster than he can manage to wipe them away. “Why did you keep them?” He asks, voice twisted with bitterness, anger, and frustration. “Why did you...” 

“Scorpius,” his dad breathes, without any promise of an apology or an explanation or really anything other than speechless shock. 

“No,” Scorpius says, shaking his head and wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “Don’t do that, just answer me.” There’s so much more force in his voice than he’d expected there to be. It carries across the kitchen and echoes off the stone walls, swelling the sound. 

His dad nods in response and looks down at his hands. His fingers skate the familiar path around the outside of his wedding band, the same one they follow when he’s sad or nervous or thinking of Astoria. This time Scorpius hopes he’s taking strength from her so he can be honest.

“I didn’t think you would ever find that,” he murmurs. 

“No,” Scorpius replies, sharp but quiet, brushing away another tear with his wet fingers. “I suppose I wasn’t meant to.”

“I wasn’t trying to hide it,” Draco says, stepping forward and leaning his hands on the back of the chair in front of him. He lifts his head and looks Scorpius right in the eye. 

“It was locked away in your chest,” Scorpius says with a shrug. “That seems pretty hidden to me.”

His dad draws in a breath and his fingers clench on the back of the chair. “I know, but that wasn’t-“ he breaks off and looks down again, silence stretching out. Normally Scorpius is good at being quiet, but today it’s too much. He has too much to say, and when the room is empty and there’s so much inside of him, he can’t stop himself.

“You know where they were from,” he says, voice rising in pitch and volume. “You know what they meant, Dad. You know they were his before they were mine. The other me. The _Scorpion King_.” He spits the name, disgusted by it, disgusted by everything to do with it. “Why did you keep them? Why would you possibly think they were a good thing to keep? They’re hideous. They’re awful. They’re despicable. There’s nothing good that they represents, and you kept them in a chest with _Mum’s_ things.” 

He gestures wildly upwards, in the direction of his dad’s office. His other hand is balled around the book, holding it hard enough to hurt, hard enough to make his hand shake. He hasn’t been so upset and angry in years. Frustration is pounding through him. What would his mum think of all this? Wouldn’t she be as disgusted as she is? 

“I thought we were past all that.” Scorpius continues, looking his dad right in the eye, beyond fear now, incandescent with rage. “I thought the Malfoys had left the darkness far behind. But maybe we haven’t. Maybe we’re still exactly who we always have been, and you haven’t learned anything. Maybe we won’t move beyond it until you’re gone.”

His dad snaps upright, expression turning stormy in an instant, eyes grey like thunder clouds, sparkling as intense as lightning. “Stop,” he says, in the voice he’s been using since Scorpius was a child. The terrifying, commanding one that makes Scorpius want to run and hide. And as angry as he is, Scorpius obeys. 

He grinds to a halt, words dying in his mouth, hot tears dribbling down his cheeks, fists clenched so hard that his nails are digging into the palm of his hands. 

“If you want me to explain,” his dad says softly, forced calm, “let me speak.”

Scorpius licks his lips, capturing salt wet on his tongue, and he sniffs. “Okay,” he says, with just a touch of bitterness.

“Thank you,” his dad murmurs. The silence stretches out again, and even though pressure is building inside Scorpius he swallows down everything he wants to say and lets his dad work through his thoughts. 

His dad’s cheek keeps twitching. His fingers flex. He keeps touching the wedding ring. He doesn’t look at Scorpius once for thirty whole seconds, until finally he lifts his head, and his eyes shine silver like sunlit rain clouds. 

“I kept it because of you,” he says simply. 

Scorpius wants to interrupt but he bites the inside of his lip and waits. 

Draco braces himself on the chair in front of him, folding his arms across the top of the wooden back. “I went back for it because I thought the Time-Turner might be inside. You’d had it with you and you’d just taken the robes off. I thought it was a possibility at least, and I wanted to check. Of course it wasn’t there – sometimes you’re too brilliant for your own good.” He gives Scorpius a small smile, but it fades quickly, and he looks down at his hands. “I intended to get rid of the robes. I took them with me so I could burn them. But I didn’t have chance before we went to Professor McGonagall’s office, and my opinion of them changed while I was listening to you talk.”

He takes a deep breath, shoulders rising slightly, squaring, and he looks right at Scorpius again. His gaze is sharp but not painfully so. It’s intent and focused, and Scorpius knows he’s meant to listen carefully to whatever his dad says next. 

“I understand why the robes mean what they do to you, but for me they mean the opposite. For me they’re a reminder of where you’ve been, what you’ve survived. I look at them and I feel so proud of you.” His gaze pierces Scorpius, and all Scorpius can do is stare back, speechless, cheeks burning hotter and hotter with every word his dad speaks. 

“It’s a struggle for me,” Draco continues voice softening. “To overcome the darkness. I was tempted by the Time-Turner for as long as I possessed it. There are a dozen artefacts in the attic that I know exactly how I would use, to bring back your mother, to give you the money and popularity you deserve, even to seek revenge on the people who whispered rumours about you. But you’ve never had those temptations. That world rolled off you as easily as the lake water; I saw it. The fact that you came back from that world at all is impressive. Inspirational, even. I don’t think I could have ever made the decision that you did.”

He pauses, letting his words sink in, and Scorpius is blank with even more confusion, embarrassment, amazement. A thousand things sloshing around inside him. There’s no danger of him interrupting now. Even if he knew what to say he wouldn’t know where to start. 

“That was why I kept the robes,” Draco goes on, still looking right at Scorpius. “Because they remind me every day of how exceptional my son is, and how much work I have to do to keep up with him.”

Scorpius is crying again. The tears are stinging his eyes, making his eyelashes and cheeks prickle. His whole body hurts from crying by now. His head aches. But even though he feels like a wrung sponge, apparently there are still some tears left to come out. 

He still doesn’t know where to begin with saying anything, so he just hugs his mum’s book to his chest, bows his head, and cries. 

For several seconds the only things he can hear and feel are his own noisy sobs, the little gasps of breath, the pain in his head, the rawness of his skin. But then a hand settles on his shoulder, warm and steadying, giving him new focus.

“I should have talked to you about it,” his dad murmurs. “I should have thought about how you’d feel. I’m sorry, Scorpius.”

Scorpius shakes his head, because it’s all he can manage to do. His dad seems to be waiting for him to say something, so he gulps in a breath and wipes his nose on the back of his hand. It’s not enough. He still feels choked by all the tears, so he keeps swallowing them down until he has enough air. 

“Okay,” he says, and it’s the only thing he’s capable of saying. Just that was hard enough. 

His dad seems to understand, because he drops his hand from Scorpius’s shoulder and runs one fingernail back and forth across the face of the opal set into his wedding ring. “If you want to get rid of it, we can,” he says. “You tell me.”

Scorpius nods and his breath shudders as he inhales. “I-I don’t know,” he says, trying to wipe the tears away with his fingers but just smearing more salt water across his face. “I didn’t...” He sniffs and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, forcing himself to calm down, because this is ridiculous. He needs to talk. He _wants_ to talk. How is he supposed to have a sensible conversation with his dad when he can’t stop crying?

Draco waits in perfect silence, and after several seconds Scorpius has managed to level himself out. He’s still crying but he’s not shaking. He can breathe. 

“I didn’t realise,” he says, slowly, methodically, like stringing together words is a logic puzzle. He doesn’t need any more emotion right now. “What you saw in it...” He looks up at his dad, vision blurred with tears. “How can one thing mean something so different to two different people?”

His dad gives a small, tight smile. “That is a very good question.”

Scorpius nods and wipes the back of his hand across his cheek again. His dad draws his wand in a flash and conjures up a handkerchief, which he hands to Scorpius. 

“This might work better.”

“Thanks,” Scorpius says. He takes it and mops his face, and with every passing second he feels less overwrought, more steady, more capable of rational thought. 

“I’m sorry for yelling,” he murmurs, glancing up at his dad.

“You don’t do that a lot,” his dad replies. “It certainly makes an impact when you do.”

Scorpius cracks a smile and tucks the handkerchief into his sleeve. “I like to save it for the important things.”

His dad smiles too and puts his wand away. “I meant it,” he says, looking at Scorpius with enough intensity that Scorpius instantly meets his gaze. “When I said I would get rid of it. If that’s what you want to happen. I think it should be your decision.”

Scorpius flicks his thumb over the corners of the pages of his mum’s book, watching the soft white bits of parchment flick by. “I’ll think about it. What you said... I want to think about it all. I’d never thought about it that way before.” He looks up at his dad. “Is that really what things from that world make you think of?”

His dad nods. “It’s better that they remind me of you than of things I’d prefer not to think about.” He pauses, and Scorpius is more than happy to wait. “You know my opinion of what you did in that world – at least I hope you do – and I continue to be impressed by how little it affected you.”

“It did though,” Scorpius mutters, lifting the book up and folding his arms across it, so he can hug both himself and it. “Affect me. Seeing that thing... It felt like being back there. It was horrible. I still have nightmares sometimes. It still terrifies me.”

“It didn’t affect you where it matters most,” his dad clarifies. “The darkness creeps into even the best people’s minds, that’s the nature of darkness, and there shouldn’t be any shame in that. But it never once touched your heart, and nothing ever will.”

Scorpius shakes his head. “That’s not true. I thought about staying there. It would have been easy to keep being popular and powerful. But it also would have been the wrong thing to do.”

Draco smiles at him, broad and bright. “That’s exactly what I mean. You’re a better person, Scorpius. Better than me. Better than most people. And that’s what the robes remind me, as if I ever needed any reminding.”

Scorpius shuffles his feet and tries to think of a response to that, but he comes up blank, so instead he holds the notebook out to his dad. “Do you think we can make cake now?”

Draco takes the book from him and nods. “I think that sounds like a good idea.”

 

There’s something about baking that’s incredibly therapeutic. Astoria always thought so, and Scorpius agrees. Within half an hour of mixing and measuring he’s feeling far more cheerful. It helps that he’s covered head to toe in ground pistachios because of an ‘incident’ with an excitable spell, and that batter is smeared up his arms, and that his dad has a streak of flour across his cheek. Scorpius and Draco aren’t brilliant at the process of baking – Astoria would have been appalled by their mess – but the outcome always tastes good and they have fun, which they hope is the main thing that matters. 

They finish levelling out the cake in its tin and put in in the oven, then Scorpius sinks into a chair while he watches his dad trying to figure out the recipe for the rose water glaze that goes on top. He feels normal again by now, lighter and distanced from all the emotion of earlier. As he watches his dad mutter to himself about rose water, and icing sugar, and whether they need to work out how to make candied pistachios, Scorpius thinks. He lets his mind wander through robes and darkness and frigid lake water, apologies and explanations and emotions. 

It’s a confusing journey of twists and turns and contradictions, in which there are no right answers. He hates the robes and everything they mean to him, but what his dad sees in them also means something, and Scorpius can’t deny him that. As much as he wants to rid the world of the robes, purge out the last piece of darkness they represent, he can’t, not completely, because maybe they aren’t representative of irretrievable evil like he’d thought they were.

“I think I know what I want to do,” he says, as they start trying to work out how much rose water to use in the icing. 

“About what?” Draco asks. “Will you test this? I don’t think it’s strong enough.”

Scorpius dips a spoon into the icing and licks it thoughtfully. “Mmm. It’s getting there. I think it needs another drop.” He puts the spoon in the sink and digs his hands into his pockets. “I know what I want to do with the robes.”

Draco spills the rose water. Thankfully most of it goes on the kitchen table rather than in the icing, but the puddle spreads fast, and Scorpius leans across to snatch Astoria’s notebook out of danger. Draco swears and waves his wand to vanish the mess. 

“Sorry,” he says, when it’s finally all gone. He recalls the bottle, brushes a couple of splashes of the water off his robes, and looks at Scorpius. “Do you think the flavour might be strong enough now?”

Scorpius smiles and stirs the icing. “It might be. If it’s not, I don’t think there’s any left to add.”

“No,” Draco agrees. He sets the bottle well out of harms’ way, taking his time about it. Finally he adjusts his cuffs and looks up at Scorpius. “What have you decided?”

“They’re important to you,” Scorpius says. “I don’t want to get rid of them. But I don’t want them to exist anymore, so I have a compromise.”

“Which is?” Draco asks. 

“Can I show you?”

Draco glances at the oven where the cake is baking. 

“I’ll get the robes,” Scorpius says. “We can’t burn the cake.” 

He leaves his dad in the kitchen, watching the cake, and climbs back up to the office. His steps are resolute and determined, and he curls his hands into fists in his pockets. He tries to keep in mind the things his dad had said, about what the robes mean to him, and what they say to him about Scorpius. This is the right thing to do, this is the right compromise. Scorpius is convinced. 

The robes are trailing half out of the box when he gets to the office. In his upset, he’d left the lid open, exposing all the other treasures within. The sleeve of the robes is dragging on the floor, and he can see the box with his baby shoes poking out from underneath the black folds of fabric. 

He bends down and drags the robes out of the box so they pool on the floor, then he takes his time to restore the other treasures to order. He straightens up the shoe box, and nestles the mementos from his parents’ wedding into a corner together. After that he closes the lid and locks the box, double checking to make sure it definitely can’t be opened. Only once he’s made sure that every other item in there is safe does he pick up the robes as a bundle and set off back downstairs. 

His dad is standing by the kitchen window, gazing out at the garden. It’s been a hot summer, and a lot of the plants are starting to wither from too much sun and not enough rain. Draco has been trying to keep them alive with a barrage of spells and potions, which is increasingly becoming less effective.

“I might have to try that Rain Charm again,” he says as Scorpius walks into the room. “That one worked quite nicely. It’s been a while since I tried it, and we’re definitely not getting any real rain.”

“No,” Scorpius agrees, pausing to gaze up at the cloudless sky. 

“There’s another potion I’ve been thinking about too,” Draco says, glancing round. 

Scorpius nods and spreads the robes out on a clean bit of the table, so he can see what he’s doing. Draco to him and walks across to look at the robes.

“What are you thinking?” He asks. 

Scorpius draws his wand and points it at a point right over where his heart would be if he was wearing the robes. He takes a deep breath and tries to keep his hand from shaking too much. “Diffindo.” 

Draco twitches a hand out like he’s going to grab the collar of the robes and pull them away, but then he clenches his fingers and draws his arm back. 

Scorpius slashes a long line across the front of the robes, including some of the green and black twisted material that looks like ribs, and a bit of the thick wool collar. When he’s made one cut he looks up at his dad. “Is this okay?”

Draco runs his thumb over his wedding ring, takes a breath, and nods. “They’re your robes.”

Scorpius withdraws his wand. “I’m going to cut you a piece to keep, and then I want to burn the rest. I thought that would be a good compromise.”

His dad surveys the robes, eyes sweeping up and down the long swathes of wool and leather. Finally, after several long seconds, he nods. “I think I agree.”

Scorpius exhales, more relieved than he’d thought he’d be to have his dad’s blessing. He gives a shaky smile. “Okay. Good.” He tightens his grip on his wand and starts cutting again, long, neat cuts, three of them, until the piece of leather and wool comes free of the rest of the robes and he picks it up. “Is this alright?” 

He holds it out to his dad, who takes it from him and inspects it. He runs his fingers over the leather and wool, turns it over and over again, then he folds it up into neat rectangle and tucks it into his pocket. “I think it’s perfect.”

Scorpius nods and twists his wand round in his hand, eyeing the robes. The part of him that wants to destroy them is battling with the bit of him that desperately wants to see in them what his dad sees. Logic tells him that if he destroys them he’ll never give himself chance to see anything good, but the rest of him feels queasy looking at them and remembering where they’d come from. 

“How do you want to destroy them?” Draco asks. “We could Vanish them. Or tear them up. Or burn them. Or I suppose we could do all three.”

Scorpius closes his eyes, struggling to think, and as he does, at the sound of his dad’s voice, the memory comes unbidden of his dad – his _other_ dad – wiping away his tears and telling him there was so much Astoria in him. It was the first time his dad had ever said something like that to him. It was the first time he dared to say everything he’d felt in return. And it didn’t turn out too badly. In fact it ended up with this, with the two of them happy, years later, happy and okay and feeling like a family despite missing the bit that always linked them together most of all. 

Tears prickle Scorpius’s eyes again, and he sniffs and blinks. He summons up his courage and turns the robes over, so he can see the snake spine at the back. 

“Diffindo,” he says, voice cracking. 

His dad steps up beside him. “We’re cutting them up then?”

Scorpius doesn’t answer. He’s too focused on keeping his hand steady and his gestures strong as he slashes another square of material. One for himself to keep. As a reminder of the things he never wants to remember again, and also of the things that he really does. 

“No,” he murmurs. “I-I wanted my bit.” He tucks his wand away and picks the fabric up. It’s heavy in his hand, the spine ripples as the wool wrinkles around it, and he brushes his fingers up and down the structure, feeling the bumps and ruts between each vertebra. 

“Oh,” Draco breathes. 

Scorpius gently folds up his piece and puts it down on the table beside Astoria’s notebook. When he looks up at his dad he can’t entirely decipher the expression on his face. There’s a bright fierceness to it. His eyes are burnished silver, shining in the light, like a full moon hidden behind scudding clouds, or a beam of hardest steel. Strong, shimmering, unwavering, unreadable.

“I’m going to burn the rest,” he says, at a loss for what else to do or say. “Maybe tonight. We could have a bonfire once the sun has gone down.”

“We could,” Draco says, with a small, tight smile that Scorpius doesn’t understand. 

“Okay,” he says, because he knows he’ll find out in time what it all means, what his dad thinks. Sometimes you have to be patient with these things. Understanding doesn’t give itself up in a second, and of course his dad is opinionated enough that Scorpius will find out his thoughts. Just not now. And that’s okay because right now he’d rather focus on his own thoughts. 

Later that evening, when the cake is all done and tucked away safely in a tin to be saved until tomorrow, they stand in the garden and burn the robes. The wool catches fire easily, the flames taking hold and licking across the black fabric, crackling high into the sky, eating it all up. The heat from the flames is raw on Scorpius’s face as he stares at the memory of that world disappearing before his very eyes. 

Silver smoke curls upwards into the sky, a plume of spiralling grey. And as wool and leather become ash and blow away on the night breeze, Scorpius feels lighter and lighter by the moment. When the last fibres crumble he looks at the glowing embers and feels free. 

“I’m proud of you,” his dad says softly, and Scorpius turns to see him gazing at the coil of smoke that’s rising towards the moon. Somehow he just knows that this is it, what his dad was thinking all along, from the moment he started cutting the fabric right through until now. He just hadn’t expressed it before. 

Scorpius nods, residual warmth heating his face, making the space around them glow red, flushing his dad’s cheeks. All that’s left of that terrible world now are his own carefully concealed memories, and the two squares of fabric that he decided should remain – one to remind his dad of the things he’s achieved, and one to remind himself. Small enough mementos to do more good than harm.

He reaches out and links arms with his dad, hugging him close and leaning against him. 

“Yes,” he says. “I’m proud of me too.”


End file.
